Well, file this one under “It’s about damned time.” The Japanese are planning to put a giant solar panel in space. It’s an idea that’s probably about as old as space flight, and I’m sure it will be economically feasible because, once it’s up there, collecting solar energy in deep space, fresh from the sun, unfiltered by Earth’s atmosphere, it will be up there for a long time. Low wear and tear and not much overhead (that’s a joke).
Let there be light. Let there be power.
I once worked on a dairy farm (on a kibbutz in the Negev desert) and one of the perks of working in the dairy was that you could tap the vat where the raw milk, unpasteurized, unhomogenized, thick with fat, and still warm from the inside of the bovine mammaries, was kept. As much better as that was from regular store brought milk is how much better space based solar power harvesting will be from earth based solar power harvesting.
I’d like to see the idea catch on. Of course, there is some expense in setting it up, and the Japanese Space Agency has a few steps to go through first, but they’re going to do it. It’s going to take about 25 years, but they’re going to do it.
Part of the problem is that it takes a country like Japan before something like this gets done. I’m not saying they are particularly adventurous, or better engineers than everybody else. But their need is greater. The reason the U.S., and Russia, have not bothered to exploit space in this particular manner, is because both countries have large, government controlling oil companies.
Cheap energy is the last thing they want.
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